Actually there is a difference with the intended changes, and I said similar to the OP in another thread from a few days ago..
As it stands now if a player skips/can't do an elite challenge they lose 5k of 42k, in the next version you will lose 7.5k (extrapolated). It doesn't make any difference if you can do everything in the week but for a 'newbie' that's a loss of an extra 2.5k standing.
The OP's approach is something many of us have suggested (pretty sure I suggested similar when nightwave came out and DE started the feedback thread), basically same challenges, just less points needed to max out so it wasn't quite so 'intensive' and reduced the feeling of it being a chore.

The exact same reason wisps won't appear in nightwave 2's... they want to 'encourage' people to buy it with plat by not giving us another option and 'they can't make changes part way through a season'.... It's all part of DE's current approach of delaying things outside of getting it with plat (hildryn was 'artificially' delayed by the event and didn't go down well) just so we go down the plat route, which is actually making me (and others) NOT want to buy plat.
@Fiftycentis New helmets could appear pretty quickly in alerts, I vaguely remember one being less than a week, assuming you were around to see/get them.

Seriously... you already know the deal on this so why even bother bringing it up.
DE have said categorically they are not bringing back the founders items in any way shape or form.
There is NO POINT you trying to get more information as it will make absolutely zero difference when you try and argue for founder items to be released as it WILL NOT HAPPEN.

A large percentage of the player base hates the rng of rivens....OP wants to repeat bad design of riven on augments which are already situational at best in a lot of cases.
Not to mention your described idea is literally just going to be powercreep as we'll just pick the 'strongest' options for the riven if it's custom built.
Augments need a bit of love but this isn't the way to do it, most of us would be happy if they could just go in the exilus slot...

Please don't nerf hydron spawns, it's been one of the more 'reliable' places to actually get the wolf to spawn and well I still need to get the bp. Having said that imo he isn't spawning 'that' often that he should get his spawn nerfed on hydron in the first place.
Outside of hydron when I'm levelling it's very rare for him to spawn in my experience as he doesn't seem to want to fight me when I'm fully kitted out for him...
Once I have the wolf hammer bp (wouldn't mind a couple extra for clan mates who have even less visits that I have) DE can nerf his spawns into the ground but until I have that I'd rather see them increase his spawns...

Considering how mind numbingly tedious it looks I really doubt I'll be doing it very often so level won't make much difference overall. I'll get the 'good stuff' from there (can't decide if wisp will be there, with the flydelon or split between them) and then it will likely be left to gather dust.

You're being a bit blinkered then.
It was pretty obvious what I've written is going to be an issue..
Current situation, you miss one elite mission from nightwave I, we'll say profit taker as that seemed to be an issue for many, that's 5k loss. With nightwave II if you miss one elite mission (extrapolated value, could be more, based on 2 instead of 3) you miss 7.5k standing, the other weekly are getting the same treatment too. Now imagine a week like we've had where we had 2 (or more) missions people couldn't or didn't want to do...
It's fine for those that want to or can do all the acts but for those that don't or can't do them all they're actually in a worse situation than they were in nightwave I, especially seeing as they said nothing (that I can remember) about reducing the overall 300k requirement.
As I said the reduced 'durations' for acts is a plus, but that only masks the fact that the changes will actually 'force' us to complete more acts we might not have done previously each week.

Yeah... I have much more interest in a riven than a catalyst...especially considering that 75 wolf creds will buy me one... well it's that or nitain because there's nothing else for me to spend it on.... got to be honest wolf creds are the most useless thing possible for a long term player when there's nothing in the store for most of us.
Still waiting on an update on titania deluxe...sure that was shown around a year ago now...
I also love how they introduced another 'game mode', which lets be honest is basically just interception with an extra step and buffs/debuffs for 'artificial' difficulty, while leaving two existing game modes unfinished in many people's eyes... I'd rather DE 'finish' arbitrations and onslaught than introduce another game mode that will likely be left in an 'unfinished' state.
Most UI changes just seem like they're making things take longer than the old ones due to the 'effects' being added to 'make it look pretty' or poorly thought out UX decisions. The store UI seems a downgrade in all honesty as it's lacking a fair bit of information just to make it look pretty... but you still managed to keep the plat purchase button at the top BEFORE the bp.

Yeah I was a bit surprised by the 'changes' mentioned..
In all honesty it seems a little counter productive to basically change it so there's less to do with higher points shared between them, this basically means we're going to be 'forced' into doing missions we might have ignored in the current iteration purely because every item we miss represents a larger portion of the points we need....
I like the changes to the 'duration' of each challenge but reducing the amount of challenges but increasing their value just seems like they've not actually been listening.

irrc last online shows the time they logged in not logged out, it's not accurate lets put it this way.
As to session full, that is someone already in a full squad.
Can you see someone as online while physically being offline, there is a small delay in my experience so you can see someone if 'they've just signed off' type of thing.

About rank 36, going to buy some catalysts and/or nitain with the creds, nothing else there for me to buy even after getting the 'new' skins...kind of stopped bothering once I hit rank 30 but helped a few clan members out and just randomly did a few doing whatever it was I wanted to do. Felt like a chore getting to rank 30 though.
Seen the wolf in double figures now, got all parts apart from the bp, multiple in the case of the head and handle, and the mask.... kind of annoyed about the fact it's been nearly 10 weeks and I haven't managed to get a full set of parts for the 'signature' weapon that is linked to this event...

I received ember and frost noggles last year when they were introduced due to a vault purchase (I bought pack first time they were released iirc)... seems a little weird if they're not continuing it.
There was some 'delay' during the release for some people getting their noggles though, I know I had to wait a few days..

I've seen other animals, especially Condrocs, have similar issues where you can clearly hit their 'body' but it doesn't register the hit. It doesn't disturb them either.
I'd say the issue might be the tranq dart rather than the capture targets.

Honestly the turning so it always faces us is one of the more annoying aspects of it, the speed it can move too doesn't seem right for the type of machine it is either but worst of all the hit boxes for the already small targets are even smaller...
You can slowva to slow it down which helps but honestly it's 'not a fun fight' due to the annoying aspects of it's design.
While the resources are nice, albeit rather limited in use since the recent changes, there are a few mods the thumpers drops that I would like to get my hands on but with the current design there is no way I'll be actively farming for the mods when they have under 2% drop chance...

Honestly unless you want the accessories I'd just grab plat and buy the parts/bps via trade then gift them to him instead, it would work out a lot cheaper, even more so if you can farm some of the items yourself. You could even go this route and just grab the accessories via one of the above suggestions to save some cash too.

I actually did try the kavat (both my kavats have like 8 or 9 forma on so it's 'fully kitted' including sharpened claws) approach early on and in my experience the AI was just so useless it never seemed to attack the wolf... I will admit I didn't try the hunter command mod though, but not sure how well that would work anyway seeing as slash status doesn't work with the wolf.

Different perspective and I'd say a slightly more balanced one, because we may still need a source of endo for prime mods.
I don't mind endo/ayatan sculptures being a reward but they shouldn't be the 'primary' or 'majority' of rewards in the drop table on an 'elite' game mode.
I'd rather see more useful rewards but the problem is as a 'vet' there isn't exactly much we 'need' and from a personal perspective I think peculiar mods are just a complete waste of DE's time and resources, same goes for ephemera and dual colours (which don't even work properly at the moment) in all honesty.
I wouldn't mind seeing some more amalgam mods though, the combination of 'upgrades' is quite nice as long as the build cost to add them don't get too excessive.